


letters left unsent

by borisrings, mikeandwill



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-18 00:32:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16106987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borisrings/pseuds/borisrings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeandwill/pseuds/mikeandwill
Summary: with a pen in your hand, love in your heart and regrets in your mind; fear slips out on to the page into the words that you left unsaid. the words you left on that sidewalk to be forgotten.only it’s not that easy.





	1. theo to boris

**Author's Note:**

> finally my fic collab with erin!! erin did theos letter, i did boris'. i hope you will like it.  
> enjoy our gay sons's chaotic minds

~~ To Boris,  ~~

 

~~ Dear Boris, ~~

 

Boris, 

 

~~Hello~~. Shit, sorry, no one starts a letter like that anymore. You’ll have to forgive me for how messy this is going to be, I haven’t really planned this. I’m not sure where to start if I’m completely honest, but I’m just going to try… being  _ completely  _ honest, I mean. I always had an issue with that, and I guess I was never honest with myself in the past. I was never honest with you, and I should’ve been. 

 

~~I’ve been thinking about you a lot~~. You crossed my mind today, when I picked up my copy of  _ The Idiot _ that I keep on my bedside table. I wasn’t reading it (again) or anything, I just like to keep it there because it’s oddly comforting. Anyway, I picked it up and smiled to myself because I just thought about you. I sat down on my bed, alone, and held it between my hands - just staring at it, taking in all the edges and folded pages. 

 

Not pages I’d ever folded, of course. You of all people know I wouldn’t dream of doing it. No, they were pages you’d folded, because you snuck this copy into my bag just before I left you on the sidewalk back in Las Vegas.  ~~ Just before you  ~~ It’s your copy, Boris. I keep it on my bedside table. I avoid looking at it, it just sits there, but today I picked it up and just looked at it for a long time. And I remembered.

 

I remember you reading that book at least three times, if not more.  _ Ah, Potter!  _ \- you’d say -  _ This is my favourite book, ever.  _ I’d walk into the room and you’d just be sprawled across the bed, limbs dangling everywhere, hanging upside down sometimes - totally captivated by the stained pages and russian words. Sometimes you’d sit on the windowsill whilst smoking a cigarette, socked feet propped up on the wall, pushing the hair out of your eyes and blowing the smoke out into the darkness. I’d watch you from the bed, and it was okay, because you were always too lost in the words to notice me looking.

 

~~ Honestly, you looked beautiful. ~~ You translated some of it to read to me out loud once, you’d slip in and out of russian and english but somehow I understood when it was your voice. On nights I couldn’t sleep, you’d get it out, let me lie my head on your chest as you read the words. I could feel the vibrations of your voice against the side of my face, and it was so comforting for me. You know how I was, well… how I still am, I suppose. Not in a good place, but I won’t get into that too much - I’m sure you can understand well enough. 

 

The point is, you know I’ve tried to do things to stop hurting. I guess I  _ tried  _ to try a lot of times, and it’s only been the same since I left you. But you made things a little more tolerable, like I could actually see myself having a future  ~~ when we were  ~~ when we were lying in bed together. The nights where you’d hold me in your arms after I’d wake up crying from a nightmare, and you wouldn’t mention it after it happened or  _ whenever  _ it happened, you’d just pull me into your arms that I’d call home and somehow make everything okay. 

 

You were always good like that, Boris. 

 

There are other things I remember that I don’t really wish to mention, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. I mean, if you don’t then don’t worry about it. It’s not important. I mean, I guess as time has passed and the longer I’ve been away from you I’ve realised what those nights really do mean. And I’m unhappy, Boris. I’m unhappy because I wish things could’ve turned out differently, and I really do despise myself for it. I hated myself for wanting more, and I still do.

 

Because when I picked up that book today, I realised that my feelings never changed. 

 

I remembered everything. It was like, until now, all of my memories of you had been put on hold because I had tried so hard to push them away to the back of my mind. I opened up the pages, and I started reading, and I heard your voice in my head. I heard your familiar breaths in between sentences and the way you liked to emphasise curse words, and I swear I saw you sitting opposite me. I saw you there, as your younger self, just looking. Looking at me with that sort of fondness and appreciation you had in your eyes when you looked at something you loved, and I wondered if you always used to look at me like that when I wasn’t paying attention. You were sat there, looking, and convincing me to not do the thing I was about to do. 

 

Because the book wasn’t the only thing on my bedside table. 

 

There were the pills. 

 

I guess I just wanted to write this to tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you had to deal with everything I threw at you, but I guess if those things didn’t happen then we wouldn’t have become as close as we did. And for that, I’m thankful. I’m thankful for you. 

 

~~ If only you had kissed me for a second longer.  ~~

 

I hope you’re doing well, Boris. I hope the world throws us together again someday. 

 

Theo. 


	2. boris to theo

~~~~~~Theo~~  
 ~~Potter! Potter~~  
 ~~Dear theo, Potter~~  
  


~~~~~~Potter~~  
 ~~Hello. Hi~~   
  
~~~~~~Potter,~~  
 ~~Wow, it’s been a while~~   
  
Hey Potter.   
I’m going to tell you a story. Yeah, a story. Oh listen, potter, I can feel your judgmental eyes hiding behind your glasses (do you still have those glasses?), I’ve never written a letter in my life. Or maybe to my mom when I was a kid. I don’t know. I can’t remember. My mom died when I was young, ~~I told you about it, right?~~ . I told you about it, ~~I think~~ , I’m pretty sure.   
  
Anyway, my story.   
One night after we stole salt and vinegar chips in your neighborhood (or was it mine?), we went to a park, it was snowing. It wasn’t the park where I once sang, it was another. I think I sang when I was with you though. I only have pieces of memories, and you were making fun of me.   
~~It was fun~~   
~~In this park, we took lots of pictures.~~   
~~~~~~There’s one on which you look cute~~   
There’s a picture we took that night, I think it was around 9pm, we can see the stars in Las Vegas’ night sky and there’s a lot of snow in your hair.   
Anyway. I found that picture this morning as I was going through my suitcase because I was leaving for Italy. I’m currently writing from Florence.   
Yeah Potter! I’m traveling!   
  
Do you remember when we wanted to travel? You told me, under the influence of a couple pills, that you will take me to New York City. I’ve always believed in it Potter, and I still do.

~~I’m just waiting~~

~~  
~~ Sometimes, after drinking a whole bottle of vodka we had stolen from my dad’s stuff, we were imagining Sahara’s sand dunes, a place where we wouldn’t be freezing our asses off.

I used to love having cold, because, sometimes you were taking my sweaters even though they had holes. It was funny. ~~And cute~~   
Your teeth were chattering, you were adjusting your glasses back on, shaking and swearing. I remember.   
  
Anyway, I found that picture. I thought about all those years, probably the best ones of my life.   
You know... A lot of memories came back when I saw this picture. Memories full of short nights, broken bottles, cigarette ends in our hair. But also more surprising memories: chapped lips in my neck, hands going through my hair, and a warm body always close to mine.   
And for some reason, and it obviously disturbs me a lot: I miss it. ~~A lot.~~   
  
You know, Potter, without you knowing it, I observed you a lot. Very often, I was waking up in the middle of the night when I was sleeping at your place (which happened about 5 times a week). Always around 3 or 4am. You know I’ve never been the type to have long nights. To be completely fair I haven’t had a full night of sleep ~~(-maybe one with you, after we had-~~ ) since my mom died. I know Potter, tragic.   
  
Sometimes I lighted a cigarette, opened the window so that the smoke couldn’t wake you up, and I looked at you. That sounds weird and creepy huh?   
Nah, don’t worry.   
I wasn’t doing anything weird, I was just looking at you, asking myself where I’d sleep, where I’d be, at this very moment if I had never met you. I never knew if it was the alcohol or the coke we had taken on Xandra’s desk. I tried to convince myself that shit was confusing me. ~~Even though I knew damn well~~ Perhaps you saved my life.   
  
And there was this constant fear.   
  
The fear that life would go on, too quickly. I was seeing the days go, and I knew this day would come. I tried not to think about it, laughing at the plans you were making for your future, crying a bit louder on the inside. I tried to close my eyes, to feel your weight next to me in the king size bed of your apartment, instead of the weight of the life and the damn coke on the desk.   
  
That might sound pathetic or incredibly stupid, but I never understood what life meant. To me, I was just there, putting in an appearance, because God or whatever decided so. I never understood what being alive meant.   
But I understood it, at some point, that very night. I understood when you left. At this moment, I knew what ‘being alive’ means.   
I understood I had been alive this whole time long, because at that very moment, when you closed the taxi door: _I died._   
  
I miss you Potter. I hope you’re happy.   
~~I am not.~~   
  
Boris. 


End file.
